Disallow PayPal Sellers Charging PayPal Fees

While I follow and agree with that much, the omitted is reducto ad absurdum.
Offense must be reported immediately, if you follow through with transaction of gifting or paying fees, you are just as much involved in the improper sale as the seller. First offense: a simple warning for fair disclosure of the updated rule, second and following offenses can warrant a temp ban (if available) or permanent ban. I don't feel I needed to spell out the obvious ease of implementation, any process of policy proofing would promptly purge the problems.

Simply add a 'Report User' option to the Private Message system. This should already be there. As for claims this is just protecting the ignorant, maybe as a bi-product, but not the main objective. I, personally, wouldn't want to promote theft, dishonesty, and illegal use of other businesses.
I think I covered it pretty well here

So what you're saying is, you want us to modify the forum code, implement a rule that will surely be broken on a regular basis, aggravate our members, and commit massive resources to enforcing this rule properly, all for something that is not necessarily connected with scams and keeps costs down for countless legitimate transactions?

I understand where you're coming from, but all I'm seeing is "just do it, enforcement is your problem" and that doesn't really solve anything.

So what you're saying is, you want us to modify the forum code, implement a rule that will surely be broken on a regular basis, aggravate our members, and commit massive resources to enforcing this rule properly...

I understand where you're coming from, but all I'm seeing is "just do it, enforcement is your problem" and that doesn't really solve anything.

Again, you are only seeing the worst possible outcome. Here's the best possible outcome:
Update the forum code, implement a rule that will surely be broken like all rules, members will read the update/receive warnings for violating the update, members will post threads griping about change like all change, the information will spread and rapidly decrease occurrences of the problem, and new members will either break all sorts of rules or follow them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eforce

...all for something that is not necessarily connected with scams and keeps costs down for countless legitimate transactions?

It is connected to scams as it enables them; and none of these transactions are legitimate, as they violate PayPal's User Agreement. Again, the fee is the overhead for these sellers making money from consumers worldwide.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eforce

I understand where you're coming from, but all I'm seeing is "just do it, enforcement is your problem" and that doesn't really solve anything.

Enforcement is not a problem, it is a responsibility. I am beginning to tire of the 'it's too hard' cop-out; PbN can either not increase the rate of work from volunteers and expect a slow transition, or increase the rate of work to increase the rate of change, or temporarily increase the amount of volunteers to deal with the temporary influx of violations.

It may not be HUGE deal to some, but it is a simple matter that should be dealt with. Don't promote theft through the dishonest use of PayPal.

Look, I respect your opinion and agree that people should not be gifting payments. While this may violate PayPal policies, it is their job to track and deal with violations, not ours. I do not condone the gifted purchases but having dealt with paypal "customer service" and knowing that they continually charge you to transfer in-system money that costs them nothing, I certainly don't shed a tear. Looking ahead, there's no way this story ends without us banning or infracting countless legitimate sellers, and then scammers making new accounts to require gifted payments. The end result is that we screw over honest sellers and the bad guys continue business as usual. The majority of scams happen because people do not take responsibility for themselves. If you want to stop scams, the answer is not more rules. The answer is education. Despite what impression you may have on the staff comments here, we have been working on an addition to the b/s/t guidelines to address this and give fair warning to users that don't know about the dangers of gifting. We're not shutting people out here. We're simply finding a more reasonable way to deal with it.

I'd like to thank everyone who has commented on this thread thus far. I appreciate all of the support. Also, I'd like to thank the staff for taking the time to address our concerns and have an open discussion with us about it. I'd also like the thank them for their patience as the discussion has been a little heated at times.

eforce is completely correct when he says that the answer is education. Regardless of any rules that PBN makes/enforces, people will still attempt to scam others. The best defense is educate buyers about the dangers of gifting. Like eforce said, the staff has been working on an addition to the BST FAQs which is awesome.

What preventing scams really comes down to is personal responsibility. This thread has had over 800 views so far. Hopefully some people came away from viewing this having learned something. Also, hopefully people will read the FAQs and tips to avoid being scammed in the BST forum. If so, they will not need a rule made as a they will be protecting themselves.

As a seller, I will not charge fees because I view it as being extremely stingy. Nor will I pay fees for a seller for that same reason.

It boils down to a fundamentally different idea in website administration (i.e. symbiosis with correlated sites); I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, but at least some ground is being made via the FAQ

I'd like to thank everyone who has commented on this thread thus far. I appreciate all of the support. Also, I'd like to thank the staff for taking the time to address our concerns and have an open discussion with us about it. I'd also like the thank them for their patience as the discussion has been a little heated at times.

eforce is completely correct when he says that the answer is education. Regardless of any rules that PBN makes/enforces, people will still attempt to scam others. The best defense is educate buyers about the dangers of gifting. Like eforce said, the staff has been working on an addition to the BST FAQs which is awesome.

What preventing scams really comes down to is personal responsibility. This thread has had over 800 views so far. Hopefully some people came away from viewing this having learned something. Also, hopefully people will read the FAQs and tips to avoid being scammed in the BST forum. If so, they will not need a rule made as a they will be protecting themselves.

As a seller, I will not charge fees because I view it as being extremely stingy. Nor will I pay fees for a seller for that same reason.

Couldn't have said it any better .

__________________SAMBROWN: He's a baller, a ladies man and most of all a stand up guy. I'd let him date my sister if I had one. So I guess my mother will do.Auctionjunkie! : While most people consider ST to stand for Small Talk I feel it's more Septic Tank than anything else. It's where all the waste and refuge goes.

We don't make rules about how people get paid here at all. Not about shipping first, paying first or anything else. We have lots of rules and we really don't want to make more. We know people wouldn't listen and we don't want to ban more people.

We see gifting payments as a serious form of trust. If you trust the seller implicitly, you can ship them a money order or gift them a payment. If you don't trust them completely, then use a 3rd party or at least take precautionary steps to protect yourself. If a seller is only accepting gifted payments, then that should be a huge red flag for people to avoid them.

But it's kind of working the PayPal system , and I think it's against their terms . The ways PayPal is being used with a gifted payment , isn't really what's it for . Couldn't PayPal give you guys legal **** for that ? Especially openly condoning it ? I don't know just asking

__________________
if you have an ebay account and want to make 3$ in paypal for 5 min of your time pm me!Closed Bolt Ballers!

But it's kind of working the PayPal system , and I think it's against their terms . The ways PayPal is being used with a gifted payment , isn't really what's it for . Couldn't PayPal give you guys legal **** for that ? Especially openly condoning it ? I don't know just asking

There's a difference between openly condoning it, and not exhausting resources to punish our members for another entity's policies. Police don't enforce speed limits when people go 5 over. That doesn't mean they condone speeding or the occasional person going 5 over than happens to be committing another crime.

There's a difference between openly condoning it, and not exhausting resources to punish our members for another entity's policies. Police don't enforce speed limits when people go 5 over. That doesn't mean they condone speeding or the occasional person going 5 over than happens to be committing another crime.

Your right I would parse pms for send to as a gift with an @ in the email or gift to someone with and @ Ect . Those get flagged but it's not really a big deal .

__________________
if you have an ebay account and want to make 3$ in paypal for 5 min of your time pm me!Closed Bolt Ballers!

I had recently PM'd John with a few ideas regarding this thread. He requested I post it up here, and unfortunately I do not have the time right now to re-construct these ideas from a direct personal PM format to a general public format (hence the You, I, etc. used throughout the following message). So forgive the informality and personal references, I just thought I'd send him my suggestions first before posting them up here. Here is the copy of the PM I sent John: (Again, You = John, I = Ironside)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ironside

Introduction
I read some of this thread, and I'll admit upfront I have not been reading the suggestions forum frequently, but I just thought of some possible solutions/suggestions, as the problem is clear that some PBN users feel the need to incorporate a rule restricting "gifting". Here is a modified copy of your response asking for suggestions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John

3rd party - I don't want to do them and I lose money for the amount of time I spend, paint I shoot, batteries I use, money lost to fees and shipping I lose out on. Saying I have something to profit by recommending it is an asinine accusation. I do it because no one else does it well. And I only do it because I can't very well tell someone they should have used a 3rd party when there was no one credible even offering the service.

Used - The problem is PbN is so big that stores were opening items, calling them "used," selling them for cheaper to break MAP and putting other stores out of business. If you want less paintball stores, keep advocating it.

Stores selling New items in the Used forums - They are not allowed to list new items in used and get no special privileges. However, anyone who has an active New thread and thinks they'd get more business in the Used forum can post a new thread with a link provided its News Upped. We need a better way to do this so suggestions are welcome. The issue is that the used forums get more attention so people want their ads there.

Most people who get tangled up here have simply never done an online deal before and either jumped at what they thought was an unbelievable opportunity, did a deal with someone who shouldn't have been trusted or one or both sides didn't communicate well enough.

It doesn't matter how many rules we make if people still jump at deals that are too good to be true. That's a real problem. Making rules might help. We aren't against it, but we aren't jumping into it. You have to remember, that's a rule for Paypal partially because they directly profit from it. Not to protect anyone.

How can we better inform people on how to make smart deals online?

3rd Party: I have no solution at this current moment, I have never used the service and from your paragraph grasp that you do not provide it for monetary gain. My only suggestion is to raise your prices to minimally cover material costs + minimum wage for your time. Not earth shattering, but I'm unfamiliar with the exact details. (I can see the counter-argument for keeping prices low, again I have no real solution at the moment). If I had more information on actual pricing, your costs, requirements to be a 3rd-party mod, actual goal of a 3rd party service (be specific - ie: Provide service for under $X), etc., I am willing to brainstorm any possible solutions.

BNIB "tested/used" issue: You outlined the issue clearly and PBN is in need of a resolution. The issue recapped is "tested" items sell for cheaper and ruin stores. Another issue is that users/stores obviously want to post in the "used" section due to high traffic. My ideas (not fool proof by any means):

1- Combine BNIB/Used sections
2- Allow stores/users to post BNIB by purchasing some equivalent of gold-up and require store pricing (I believe the acronym used is MAP).
3- Instead of gold-up, perhaps use another color font for their title, something eye-catching.
3b- Bolding helps attract users to the thread, I imagine a red/blue/green font could do the same for users who purchase the BNIB status.

Benefits of implementation: Stores get higher traffic in new combined BST forums, stores are still forced to use MAP, therefore still protecting paintball stores. They pay a fee for it to be posted and receive benefit of eye-catching thread.

Alternative suggestion: Place a filter on words like BNIB, Brand New, Unopened, Tested, etc that REQUIRE approval by XYZ mod/staff to be physically posted. Counter-argument: I grasp this increases the work load of what I would assume to be overburdened mods/staff, so might not be a plausible idea. I understand, I moderated video game forums for 2 years, it gets old fast. Just an idea (we had toyed with this idea on the forums for a while, we never implemented due to increased workload on a volunteer staff.)

Final issue/resolution: "Gifting"
Its a mess, I agree with everything you've stated and I comprehend the users argument. My suggestion is brief - filter the word "gift" just like the forums filter inappropriate language, other banned sites/forums, etc. BUT do not make it an infraction or create a necessary punishment for requesting gifting. The idea is simply to make it harder to ask for it, not to actually enforce anything against users trying to require gifting.
Counter argument: Users can avoid in numerous ways. PBN would still not be responsible for enforcement. Implementation might be waste of time if its heavily avoided.

Sub-idea: Instead of a filter, perhaps if the OP posts the word gifted, place some sort of "warning" at the top of their BST (such as BST legit banner/flag, you get the idea). So if the OP uses gifted, the thread has a red warning banner, and hopefully would be unique and create incentives to steer buyers and sellers away from gifting.
Counter argument: Still avoidable - but no enforcement necessary on PBN part. Possible difficult coding, waste of time, etc.

Conclusion:
If any of these ideas have any merit in your eyes and would not require excessive upstart work or post-implementation work (IE increased workload on mods/server/actual cost), my question is what does PBN have to lose by implementing any of the aforementioned ideas?

----- End of PM-----

I am completely open to any suggestions, tweaks, criticisms, etc, of any ideas I've previously mentioned. Do keep in mind that PBN has goals, many of which I cannot confirm but can imagine without much thought (IE: provide a clean BST without losing user base), and that from my own personal experience as a moderator on other forums, anything that will increase the workload of a volunteer (or even paid) staff is less likely to be implemented than simple one time resolutions.

I stress my final point about the "gifting" ideas that PBN staff would still NOT be enforcing any sort of gifting rule, but simply discouraging the use of the term or concept as they already appear to be doing.

I am happy to answer any questions or discussion via PM or posting here. I will attempt to check here once every few days to respond to any particular comment or concern. If you'd like a sooner response from me (although I claim no particular expertise with PBN), shoot me a PM with the link to your post, as I respond faster to those.

Plus 1 on this. I never gift, and never ask a buyer to gift either. User should stop being lazy and just calculate it out. Then ask for that amount. To be fair PayPal should HAVE a way for the buyer to pay fees without gifting, too!